maelstrom
by cedricsowner
Summary: A tragic incident throws Garcia into a crisis. Can Rossi help her? And what about Morgan? Slight references to episodes 3.9 & 2.4. As usual, please mind the rating!
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I do not own Criminal Minds and intend no copyright infringement.**

maelstrom

_Nick Hornby put it quite right in his novel "Slam" when he wrote that you can keep out of trouble pretty much every minute of your life apart from, for example, five seconds and that five seconds can get you into the worst trouble of all. Thousands of years ago, Aristotle coined the term "hamartía" for this: A small lapse in a moment of weakness can be enough to let things violently spin out of control. _

"Aaron, are you _sure_ you didn't say anything that might be interpreted as offensive to Strauss last time you talked to her? Not that it wouldn't be understandable…"

"David, you know how much I hate repeating myself, so for the last time: There was nothing!"

"I'm just trying to find an explanation for _this_." Rossi was covered in a thick layer of dirt, sweat-soaked and constantly under attack from Mosquitoes which, according to Reid, in this size were not common so far north. Very helpful information, that.

"Come on Dave, you're a hunter, you've been through worse tracking down the giant stag whose antlers are now adorning your living-room wall", Aaron Hotchner replied, swatting another Mosquito that tried to use his neck as a gas station.

"Oh yes! Now that you say it… This situation is exactly the same. Just without the stag, the rifle and a proper meal at the end of the day!"

"You must have said something, Hotch", Reid agreed with the senior agent. "Strauss wouldn't have forced us to undertake this survival training without reason."

"And she surely wouldn't have forced the media liaison officer to tag along, too", JJ added accusingly, wiping her forehead, leaving a muddy streak on it.

"Not to mention the technical analyst", Garcia joined in the choir of complaints. "Can you believe it? That instructor from hell who sent us into this godforsaken wilderness forbid me to take my PDA with me! The next internet café is sixty miles away – I'll probably die of sensory deprivation!"

"Will you stop picking on Hotch?", Morgan jumped in. "It's not his fault, you heard him."

"Could you at least _try _to hide the fact that you're actually enjoying this?", Prentiss asked angrily.

"This is meant as some kind of bonding experience", Hotch explained exasperatedly.

"The people on this team are already so close to each other, any more bonding and we'll be producing babies", Rossi grunted. Exhausted from hiking through the steadily rising terrain, he leaned against a tree and looked at a pond surrounded by rocks deeper down in the woods. From this distance, the water appeared to be pitch black. For a moment he just stared at the landscape. Then he turned to his colleagues, frowning. "Did you hear that?" he asked.


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: I do not own Criminal Minds and intend no copyright infringement.**

"I saw movement on one of the rocks and then heard a loud splash", Rossi explained, striding down to the pond, the others in swift pursuit.

"Could have been a deer or something", Reid mused.

"I'm a hunter, Reid. A real hunter. Not one of those trigger-happy drunken idiots who can't distinguish a cow from a caribou. I know what a deer looks like!" They reached the pond's shore. The water's surface several feet under them was indeed disturbed and full of bubbles as if something big had fallen into it. The blink of an eye later they knew for sure it hadn't been an animal: A young girl emerged, gasping for air, arms flailing helplessly.

"Hold on! We're coming!", Prentiss shouted.

"The shore is very steep and rocky – I'll have to rope myself down", Morgan told the others. "Garcia, quick, help to harness me!" The instructor had forced the technical analyst to practice knots for hours, so she should have known best how to secure her friend for the descend, but she was rooted to the spot, unable to move. Penelope spent most of her life in cyberspace. This was way too real for her, too close, too three-dimensional. Reid, who had watched Garcia practicing the necessary knots during a break, took over and had Morgan ready within seconds.

Hotch, Prentiss and Rossi supported their colleague as he slowly lowered himself down to the water. "Why aren't you working faster?!", Garcia wanted to shout at them. The girl was paddling panicky, sinking and emerging again and again. At first she had been screaming at the top of her lungs, by now she was shrieking. Considering the state she was in, she probably hadn't even noticed that help was on the way. JJ tried to throw the end of a second rope to her, but she was too far in the middle of the pond. Morgan, still airborne, wished he could've just jumped in, but the area around the shore was covered with jagged rocks right under the waterline. One wrong move and he wouldn't be able to help her at all.

When he finally reached the water's surface, he hissed: It was icy cold against his heated skin and every cell in his body cringed. He knew how dangerous it was, taking such a gelid bath right after the physically demanding ascend. It could actually cause his heart to stop because of the shock from the sudden temperature change, but what choice did he have? The girl in the water surely had none.

"Morgan, fast! She sank again!", Rossi shouted from above. The agent drew a deep breath and dived into the pond's dark-blue blackness.


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer: I do not own Criminal Minds and intend no copyright infringement.**

The almost total lack of light – probably because the surrounding trees shielded the pond from the sun – made orientation under water extremely difficult, but Morgan didn't have a diving instructor license for nothing. He knew the girl had to be about 35° from his position, so he did a few forceful strokes in that direction. There! She was right in front of him, her blond hair shimmering slightly in the dim light, her face ghastly white.

Hope lit up in the girl's face as she saw him coming. She reached out to him, but she wasn't moving properly. Was something wrong with her legs? Her fingertips brushed against his hands and Morgan was just about to grab her wrists, when all of a sudden… the instructor had warned them about this … _"Don't you dare take a "refreshing" bath in one of the ponds"_, he had said. _"They are connected to a miles long cave system which creates extremely dangerous vortexes that drag you inside the mountain."_ … a violent maelstrom was yanking her away from him.

The profiler shot forward and managed to get hold of one of her sleeves, but only for a few seconds – the material was of poor quality. It ripped almost as soon as he seized it. At this very moment, Morgan himself was caught in the vortex. He had been trapped in one or two before – there were some dangerous places in the waters off Jamaica's north coast – but he had never been exposed to nature's pure force with so little protection: He was running out of air and the icy cold water was starting to paralyze his arms and legs, slowing down his movements. The whirl threw him around like a ragdoll. Where was the girl? He couldn't see her anymore.

Up on the shore, the sudden violent pull of the vortex caused the agents on the rope to stumble forwards. JJ and Reid quickly rushed to their side. Only Garcia was still frozen to the spot – this was all happening so fast, she wasn't able to get hold of the situation. All she would have needed was a moment to think things through, but time was the one thing they didn't have.

"He must be caught in a vortex!", Rossi shouted. "We've got to pull him up!"

"What if we're pulling him away from the girl?", JJ cried.

Hotch knew she was right. If they pulled Morgan back, chances were they signed the girl's death sentence. But he was under water for three minutes now. Everything above four was potentially brain damaging. Besides that, the vortex was fiercely yanking at the rope, indicating a very strong whirl – what if the rope, which was surely in contact with at least one of these jagged rocks, frayed out and snapped? As the leader of this team Aaron knew it was up to him to make a decision. Fast. "Pull back!", he ordered.

When Derek finally appeared on the surface, he was alone.


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer: I do not own Criminal Minds and intend no copyright infringement.**

"What was she doing so far out here?" Rossi asked, still unbelieving. The survival training instructor and a rescue squad, alerted by a signal from the flare gun the instructor had given Hotch, arrived only ten minutes after the agents had managed to pull Morgan back to the shore, but it took five hours and three fully equipped aquanauts from the local cave diving club to retrieve the girl. They found her lifeless body deep in the mountain, caught between rocks. Rossi couldn't take his eyes off her. With her pink Hello Kitty shirt, blue jeans and yellow sneakers she looked heartbreakingly young, not like her actual age, which was fifteen. _Fifteen._

"This place is quite popular with the local teens", the sheriff explained. "About half a mile from here a service road is coming up the mountain. From there it's not that difficult to get to the pond. It's a perfect place for parties – no neighbors complaining about the noise level, no parents prohibiting the consumption of alcohol…" The elderly law enforcer bit his lip. "God, I can't believe it's Arielle Stetson. And that after she had been so lucky… I went to school with Jason, her father. They've just moved back here, after a decade in Pennsylvania. Three hours ago he called my office. Louise, his wife, had found a suicide note on her daughter's bed. Back then I didn't know this…", he vaguely nodded in the direction of the divers and the people from the rescue squad who were finally preparing to leave, "…was related to her."

Shaking his head, Rossi looked at the girl one last time. She was pretty – some baby fat here and there and a couple of zits, but her hair was bright as gold. Even now, after so many hours in the water and with the forest soil as a backdrop, it shimmered. Her eyes were the brightest baby blue he had ever seen. She would have been beautiful if she had given herself a chance.

A day later Hotchner talked to the BAU's Section Chief. "There's absolutely no indication whatsoever that this wasn't a suicide", Strauss said over the phone, as sympathetic as ever. "In 2005 eleven children _each day_ took their own life in the USA alone. It's the third leading cause of death for teenagers in this country. You did everything you could. According to the coroner's report she broke both her legs during the fall so she had no chance to swim towards Agent Morgan. He couldn't get closer to her because of the vortex. It's all her fault. Sad, but end of story. I'm expecting you back at Quantico as fast as possible."

"My team just went through a severely traumatic experience", the Unit Chief all but hissed. "Especially Garcia isn't coping well. We're going to stay for the funeral so things can at least come to some kind of completion." Hotch didn't need to be a profiler to tell from the disapproving silence on the other end of the line that Strauss was angry, but he was not willing to waste any energy on this. His friends had taken damage … he had taken damage … they needed time to heal.


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer: I do not own Criminal Minds and intend no copyright infringement.**

Garcia hated funerals. They brought back too many unwanted memories. Nevertheless she couldn't brace herself up to leave the graveyard with the others after the ceremony was over. Lost and forlorn, she stayed behind in the searing heat. The team expected Morgan to talk to her, but he remained unmoved in the passenger's seat next to Hotch, apparently impatient to get going. Rossi, in the back seat, studied him closely for a moment, then got out of the car again. "We'll meet at the airport", he said. As his colleagues drove off, he went back to the graveyard.

"I'd like to stick around a little longer", Garcia said as he reached her.

"You'll get a heat stroke", Rossi replied.

"Not _here_ as "on the graveyard", _here _as "in this town", she explained impatiently. "In her suicide note Arielle gave no explanation for her decision, she just apologized to her parents. Don't you think they would like to know why she did what she did?"

Rossi's dark eyes bore into her. "Tell me the real reason why you want to stay behind and I'll pull some strings with Strauss", he said. _"Or at least I'll try, considering that she seems to be angry with the BAU…"_, he added silently.

Garcia squirmed under his stare. She hated that look. He had used it on her before, back at her apartment, after Baylor had tried to kill her for the second time. "Why are you doing this?", she hissed. "All I want is to tie up some loose ends. This has nothing to do with you, so get the hell away from me! I don't need your help, I can talk to Strauss myself." She turned and started to walk away.

"You're lying to yourself", Rossi replied calmly. "This has nothing to do with Arielle's parents. You weren't able to help the kid back in the woods and now you're trying to make up for it by offering to clear a couple of things." He reached out, grabbed her arm and swung her around forcefully. "This won't work. You _failed_ up there and there's no way whatsoever to undo that failure. No matter how much you help the parents now, in the end you will still feel guilty. We can stay around and do some research, of course we can, but if you don't accept what you did and carry on, it will torment you forever. Trust me, I know what I'm talking about." A violent shudder took hold of Garcia's whole body. She started crying. Rossi pulled her close and held her for a long time.


	6. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer: I do not own Criminal Minds and intend no copyright infringement.**

"Did you know that Arthur Lydiard, practically the inventor of jogging, was a shoemaker and a milkman before becoming one of the world's best athletics coaches?", Reid puffed, trying to keep up with Morgan. The team minus Rossi and Garcia was back in Quantico and the young doctor had insisted on accompanying his friend on his morning training round.

"Yeah, and he would surely advise you to shut up and concentrate on running without fainting." Morgan was slightly annoyed. He had wanted to be alone, but ever since their return Reid had clung to him like an over-affectionate puppy.

"Speaking of that…" The young man stopped and crumbled to the ground, gasping for air, shaking all over.

"Reid! You didn't even last ten minutes! Why in the world did you want to come with me?"

"I thought this would be a good training for Strauss' newest idea to "enhance team bonding", Reid lied, coughing. "An alternative option to survive the event would be applying for Canadian citizenship."

His reference to Strauss' freshest attempt at tormenting the members of the BAU made Morgan smile. "I still hope she won't go through with it, but at the moment it looks as if we're all going to make fools of ourselves at the FBI Academy's annual picnic. _A karaoke version of Village People's "YMCA", presented by the BAU._ It's unbelievable, isn't it? Hotch must've really hurt her. What do you think? Does he indeed not know why she started this retaliation campaign against us?"

"Hotch would never lie to us", the young doctor said earnestly, taking gulps of air. "I've never met anyone who carried out the principle of strict honesty with more vigor."

Morgan could guess which direction this conversation was going to take and wanted to resume running, but he couldn't possibly let Reid alone. Not in the state he was in. Granted, they were on FBI premises and not behind enemy's lines, but the Marines' rule of never leaving a man behind still applied to this situation somehow. Derek wondered if Spencer, knowing this, had planned the whole situation beforehand.

"He would have told you if you had messed up in that pond, you know?", Reid continued.

His friend didn't reply. Face grimly set, he stared in the distance.

"I would have never thought that your trust in us is so small", the young doctor added. He couldn't possibly know it, but he was barking up the wrong tree. His colleague knew better than torturing himself with useless regrets.

"I trust you!", Morgan sharply retorted. "How dare you say I don't trust you? You're like family to me!"

"Then why don't you trust us telling you the truth? You did everything in your power. It was simply impossible to save that girl. We all did our best!"

"Not all of us", Derek whispered. "Not all…"

Totally flabbergasted, Reid stared at his friend as the truth finally dawned on him. "He's disappointed with _Garcia_", he realized, suddenly remembering the look on Morgan's face when she had been unable to harness him. "She let him down in a critical situation… Of course! Morgan's military background taken into consideration, Garcia's helplessness must seem to him like a major failure." The young doctor wondered if Arielle had wasted a single thought on what effect her suicide would have on others. Her deed had troubled two close friends so deeply that a rift had appeared between them. Reid didn't even want to imagine how the parents felt.


	7. Chapter 7

**Disclaimer: I do not own Criminal Minds and intend no copyright infringement.**

Some teenagers commit suicide to lash out at their nearest and dearest, forgetting that they won't be around to enjoy their revenge. Others decide to take their life because they are ashamed of something or feel trapped in a situation and don't see another way out. Arielle Stetson clearly belonged to the second group. As a rule its members believe that the world is better off without them. Boy, are they wrong.

Arielle's parents were beyond devastation. "She could have come to us with everything. Even if she had been pregnant… we would have coped with that. Why didn't she come to us?" Tears streamed down the mother's face. "And that after we had been so lucky…" Her voice trailed off. Arielle had been an only child.

"Lucky?", Rossi inquired. There was this term again – the sheriff also had said that Arielle had been lucky.

"We used to live in Crickton, that's a small town near Barlowe, Pennsylvania", the father explained. He needn't say more. Two months ago, seven students had been shot in the "Barlowe School Shooting". "Arielle was sick that day, otherwise she would have been there", Jason Stetson continued quietly. "Five of the victims had been in her year…."

The profiler knew the case. Agent Salisbury and his team were still investigating the incident. They had, very untypical for a school shooting, but very typical for an Ivanhoe Salisbury case, not been able to establish the identity of the perpetrators yet. The unsubs had struck during lunch hour, fired for about two minutes and then – this was Salisbury's theory – gotten rid of their masks and other equipment to mix with the droves of fleeing students. "Do you think it was the loss of her friends that caused her to give up in the end?", he asked the parents. "There's a mental condition called "survivor syndrome". It's a form of post-traumatic stress disorder. People feel guilty because they survived violent incidents others didn't."

The father sadly shook his head. "She started to change about two weeks prior to the shooting. Grew moody and withdrawn. We thought it was puberty… If we hadn't misinterpreted this…" He got up and exited the room, leaving his silently crying wife behind on the sofa. Rossi exchanged glances with Garcia and nodded. Finding out what had caused the change in Arielle would be their starting point. Two hours later they were on their way to Pennsylvania.


	8. Chapter 8

**Disclaimer: I do not own Criminal Minds and intend no copyright infringement.**

"Ever since the Sheppard case back in L.A. I'm not much into psychodrama, Hotch", Morgan stated impatiently. "And I'm surprised that you are."

"Who said something about psychodrama?", his boss replied, sounding rather grim.

"I can find absolutely no other explanation for you and Reid together in a boxing ring."

Reid looked at Aaron Hotchner as if he wanted to say: "Well… yes… this explanation thing… could you please tell me again why I'm wearing a helmet and a mouthpiece and you've got this menacing look on your face?"

"Reid has practically no close combat skills. I'm going to change that."

The young doctor looked scared.

"What would Reid need close combat skills for?", Morgan argued. "He's in the team because of his brain, there's no need for him to become some master of martial arts…"

"And what if a situation comes up in which him being a trained combatant would be helpful? You can't deny such a situation could occur!" The Unit Chief started circling Reid.

The young doctor looked very scared.

"And what if a situation comes up in which me being an expert at quantum physics would come in handy? Do you want me to start studying physics? That's why we're a team, Hotch – everyone excels in a certain area and we complement each other", Morgan insisted.

"Well roared, lion", his boss answered, sweeping Reid off his feet with a single kick. "And where does that leave you being disappointed with Garcia for failing in a highly stressful crisis situation?"

"Do you really think I don't know that everything was too much for her back in the woods? But nevertheless, letting a comrade down is a serious failure. I need some time to deal with that, Hotch", Morgan said quietly. Shaking his head, he turned around and left the gym hall.

"He's gone", Reid coughed, struggling unsuccessfully to get on his feet again. "You can stop tossing me around now."

"Oh, I've just decided to turn this into a training session", the Unit Chief replied, sending Reid into the ropes with another well-placed kick. "Now how would you fend off a blow like that…?"

Morgan returned to the bull pen and got himself and Emily a cup of coffee. He was on his way back to his desk when suddenly an all too familiar but not very welcome voice called out to him. "Good to see you, Agent Morgan", Section Chief Strauss greeted him. Prentiss and JJ, who had just dropped a case file on Reid's desk, exchanged wary glances and pricked up their ears. Strauss looked way too satisfied for their taste. What was she up to now? Had she found yet another way to get back at them – for whatever reason?

"You've made a lasting impression on Congresswoman Driscoll", Erin Strauss began, eyes sparkling with amusement.

Congresswoman Driscoll? Morgan vaguely remembered a tall woman around his age, not unattractive, but with no light in her eyes. She had visited the BAU a couple of days ago. He had witnessed her severely reprimanding a secretary for a minor mistake. Judge people by how they treat their inferiors, not their equals.

"She was so impressed with you, she asked me if you're living in a stable relationship and when I denied she wondered if you would go out with her."

Derek Morgan couldn't believe his ears. "But of course you told her that you have no say whatsoever in your agents' private lives?"

"Actually I told her Friday night, eight o'clock." Erin Strauss turned on her heels and left, an evil grin spreading across her face.

"Now, that's it! I'm going to figure out what triggered this, and if it's the last thing I do!", Morgan thundered, slamming down his cup so hard that it spilt over.


	9. Chapter 9

**Disclaimer: I do not own Criminal Minds and intend no copyright infringement.**

Since Agent Salisbury surely wouldn't embrace the idea of BAU members sniffing around on his crime scene, Rossi and Garcia decided to stay out of his way as much as possible. The hotel rented out conference rooms, too, so Penelope set up her equipment there.

The parents had said that Arielle's behavior had started to change two weeks prior to the shooting. The only unusual event in this time frame was an excursion she had undertaken with her biology class. The whole course had visited a potato chip factory and spent the day taking soil samples from the premises to find out if the factory emitted dangerous substances. Of course they hadn't found anything, the factory owners would've hardly agreed to an excursion on their grounds if their conscience hadn't been extra clean. Some of the students had put pictures from the trip on their facebook profile page.

"What has happened to you on that day, little girl?", Garcia asked a photo of Arielle. The girl could be seen on several of the facebook pictures, always together with other students. The varying position of the sun indicated that some were taken in the morning, before the groups, consisting of five students each, spread out to collect probes and some were taken in the evening, when all groups returned with their findings. "Talk to me", she pleaded, glad that Rossi was out of the room to get some coffee. "You can't just walk away! They say suicides become restless souls, but the opposite is true: Without answers, their friends and relatives are doomed to question themselves for the rest of their lives. Do you really think your parents deserve such a fate?"

Suddenly something caught her attention. She took a step back. Yes, definitely… "Look at the clothes Arielle is wearing in the morning!", she told Rossi, who was just coming round the corner. "And now look at the clothes in the evening."

The senior agent squinted his eyes. "Arielle is wearing different clothes", he observed. "That's not the same jeans she wore in the morning. Actually it's no jeans at all. Looks like sportswear to me… "

"Look at the boy on her left. He's wearing a different t-shirt... Looks like sportswear, too." Garcia turned to her laptop to enlarge the picture in question. "Can you see the boy with the glasses, in the background? His clothes vary, too. He's wearing a sports jacket that's not on the morning pictures. Why in the world did they put on these clothes? They're totally inappropriate for a school excursion. And they don't even seem to fit…"

"There's something else…", Rossi murmured. He stared at the pictures intensely. "Look at this…", he pointed at the picture taken of Arielle's dead body right after the divers had retrieved her from the mountain, "…and then look at this." He tapped against a "morning"-photo of the excursion. Judging from Garcia's blank expression, she had no idea what he was talking about. "Here…", he tapped against the "morning"-photo again, "…she dresses smartly – not overly sexy, but stylish, as far as I can tell. But for her suicide she chose totally different clothes – a pink Hello Kitty shirt and yellow sneakers… Why did she want to die in such a rather childish outfit?"


	10. Chapter 10

**Disclaimer: I do not own Criminal Minds and intend no copyright infringement.**

Ivanhoe Salisbury practically went through the roof when Rossi and Garcia asked him to haul in two students for questioning, but he stood no chance against a fiercely determined technical analyst and a legendary profiler with friends in high places. The boys, twin brothers Alec and Rick Garrett, were brought to the police station where Salisbury and his team had set up their command center.

"Tell me what happened on the day of the biology excursion", Rossi asked them. The boy's parents, sitting right next to them with their lawyer, looked confused, they had thought this was about the shooting, but Rick started chewing his lip violently, and Alec began to shake. They knew exactly what the FBI Agent was talking about. Nevertheless no one said a word. "Okay, no problem, I can do this without your help. Of course, cooperation could earn you some brownie points with the jury…."

Alec, the boy with the glasses, swallowed hard. The lawyer wanted to jump in and stop him , his brother shot him a warning glance, but the teenager had made a decision. "I can't do this anymore, Rick", he whispered, trembling like an aspen leaf. "I hear the screams every night. I can't go on like this.." He looked at Rossi: "It was an accident." Rick started to cry. Deeply shocked, the parents stared at their children as if they were strangers.

"Are you kidding me? How can a school shooting be an accident?", Agent Salisbury chipped in. The senior agent silenced him with a single meaningful look.

"Let's start from the beginning", Rossi said calmly."You, your brother, Arielle Stetson, Lucy Greener and Kelly Hobson were all in one group at the excursion, right? After the teacher sent you on the factory's premises, you were out of his sight… No adult control whatsoever till the evening. You didn't waste the whole beautiful day with collecting probes, did you?"

"Lucy had brought some grass. We left the premises and found ourselves a picnic place near a waterfall. Everything went fine, but then this girl appeared…"

"Patty Ridgemont, six years of age…", Rossi said. "She often played near the waterfall. Her parents didn't mind, they said she knew the terrain very well."

"She got on our nerves, said our cigarettes smelt funny… We just wanted to scare her off, so…" Alec couldn't go on. His voice trailed off in a series of sobs.

"We started pushing her around a little…", his brother continued, barely audible. "Maybe it was the grass… we overdid it… she stumbled backwards and fell into the water… We tried to safe her! Arielle, Alec and me, we jumped after her and dragged her out, but… she must have hit a rock during the fall… Her head was smashed… she was dead…."

"So instead of calling an ambulance and the police you decided to hush everything up… You pushed her back into the water and left… on the way back to the factory you stole sportswear from a clothesline because your own clothes had gotten wet and contaminated with blood." Garcia had found a police report on stolen jogging clothes dating from the day in question. Rossi showed it to them.

The boys slowly nodded. "But how did you connect this with us?", Alec asked after a moment of silence.

"Arielle mimicked Patty's death when she took her own life. She put on clothes similar to those Patty wore on the day of her death and she chose to drown just like her", Rossi explained. "She couldn't live with the guilt."

"Lucy Greener and Kelly Hobson both died in the massacre at your High School two weeks later! _You _did it! To make sure no one would uncover your deed, you staged a school shooting! This way you could kill Lucy Greener and Kelly Hobson without drawing too much attention – Arielle was lucky, she escaped your evil plan!" Smug as hell, Salisbury looked around, waiting for praise.

Rossi shook his head. "I'm afraid Ivanhoe, it's not that easy. These boys killed a little girl by accident. To go from there to a semi-terroristic act like a school shooting in hardly two weeks would be a very fast and rather unlikely deterioration. I'm not saying it's impossible but if I were you I wouldn't focus on these two as the perpetrators." The profiler didn't continue, but Salisbury understood very well what Rossi had left unsaid: "And don't you dare blame it on them just because you don't find anyone else… ."

"Mom? Dad?", the twins turned to their parents. Wordlessly, the Garretts embraced their children.


	11. Chapter 11

**Disclaimer: I do not own Criminal Minds and intend no copyright infringement.**

"Garcia!" Morgan came running out of the conference room the second she and Rossi stepped out of the elevator. Penelope's face lit up like a Christmas tree when she saw her friend, but then it darkened as she remembered the terrible moment back in the woods. "Come on, baby girl…", he said. _Baby girl…_ Her heart beat faster. He grabbed her by the hand, dragged her into her office and pushed her gently into her swivel chair. "I don't care how many laws you have to break and which codes you've got to hack – it'll all be on my head. You've got to find out what made Strauss so angry!"

"JJ, Prentiss and Morgan spent the last three hours practically grilling me", Hotch said, greeting Rossi. "Emily and Derek even tried good cop – bad cop on me. JJ actually considered contacting the hypnosis specialist Reid consulted in Las Vegas. Maybe I should agree to that… I'd really like to know what I said…."

"If I figure this out, am I forgiven?" Garcia asked Morgan, voice trembling.

The agent looked her in the eyes for a long moment. When he finally spoke up, his voice was soft and caring. "My reaction to your failure was as wrong as your failure. You couldn't help staring, frozen to the spot, instead of doing something, I couldn't help being disappointed with you, despite knowing that you're not used to stressful situations. So we both have something to work on and I think that balances things out, don't you think?" He hugged her tightly. "Now please, goddess of omniscient knowledge, please work a miracle for me!"

Ten minutes later, Garcia yelled from her office: "Hotch, did you say _anything _against Neil Diamond? Strauss presides over the local fan club…"

The Unit Chief's eyes widened and he made a face: "Ooooh…."

Rossi couldn't believe it. "You offended _Neil Diamond_ in Strauss' presence? Good Lord, Hotch, we can be happy she didn't transfer us to Siberia!"

Half an hour later Aaron Hotchner went to Strauss' office. "It's about the BAU performance at the Academy's annual picnic…", he began.

Strauss immediately went into vehement defense mode: "I'm not going to withdraw my order, Agent Hotchner…"

"I just wanted to ask your consent for a slight modification…", the FBI Agent said. "YMCA is a bit outdated. We would prefer to perform "Pretty Amazing Grace". It's a beautiful ballad by Neil Diamond. Maybe you've heard of him… Would that be alright with you?"

A thin but honest smile showed on Strauss' face. Truly a sight to behold.

_**author's note: 1. Agent Salisbury made his first appearance in "bribe". 2. I don't know why, but this was hell to write. I've spent two weeks on this and it still sounds wrong. It would be really nice if you let me know what you think. **_


End file.
